Here Be Monsters

Saturday, 29 June 1996

1002 GMT

The beast may be awakened in my heart, but I am suddenly appalled at the look on Severus' face. He is so very tired, and has done so very much. He has faced dangers in the past few days that would have made most members of the Auror Corps quail at the mere imagining, and yet he is able to describe them as if they were mere workday inconveniences. Surely this can wait.

Surely it cannot.

Forgive me Severus.

"There is something else we need to discuss." I repeat, trying to delay the moment. Maybe if I could just breathe a few more deep breaths, I could get this strange presence under control. I try it, under the guise of taking a lemon drop. It seems to help a little.

But the monster is still there. It has settled for the moment, perhaps palliated by the stricken expression on Severus features, but it is only resting on its haunches. Perhaps I should send him away and try again later? But there can be no later. For one thing I must accompany Hagrid to Beauxbatons shortly. For another, some matters have gone unaddressed far too long.

Severus, why did you have to cross the boundary? I fear you we are both going to leave hear with claw marks on our souls.

//Like I said, Professor, you really should have invited Harry to stay.//

No, I realize now it is a good thing he is gone. My wonderful Harry is too good to enjoy this - even if he does hate both Snape and myself.

Harryharryharrypleasedon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tforgiveforgive

Snape is already so far gone into shock that he is forgetting to sneer. "Yes, Headmaster?" he says, in a voice that is, for him, almost contrite.

I sigh. It is a genuine sigh, because I really am very loathe to begin this subject. Yet like a badly healed wound, I must rupture the scab and drain the filth before any repairs can be done - I will not deign to call it healing, for we are long past that. My fault again.

The monster within stirs and flexes its claws.

I am so very, very sorry my dear brave Professor Snape.

And yet I am not sorry at all. Before I walked through my days with a divided heart. Now it seems as if I have a divided mind as well. Not in the sense of insanity, but in the sense of a dawning realization of how complicated my feelings towards these most important people in my life, Severus Snape and Harry Potter, really are.

"We have not had a chance to speak since my return to Hogwarts, and there is a matter that we need to discuss and make very clear."

His face tenses. He knows what is coming. A sneer spreads across his features. It isn't his offensive sneer, it's his defensive sneer. When you've known him as long as I have, you can tell the difference.

"Anything, Professor Dumbledore." He is obviously going to try and pretend like the last few minutes of conversation never happened. I suppose he thinks that if he can fool Voldemort he can bluff his way through anything. But both his tone and his choice of words betray him.

Not Headmaster anymore? Oh Severus, can't you stop these childish games for a moment? I know it hurts, but you are only making it harder on yourself.

"I was given to understand a while ago when speaking with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin that you had discontinued Mr. Potter's Occlumency lessons. I request an accounting for you behavior."

Fawkes hisses softly. Evidently he would like an accounting as well.

The defensive sneer grows wider, but Snape's eyes gleam for a moment with something else - what? Anger? Jealousy? Almost certainly both and more besides.

"Lupin and Black," he fairly snarls the names, "probably also told you what I found Mr. Potter doing in my office!"

"The incident with the pensieve, yes, that was regretable." I try to maintain eye contact, but Severus closes both his eyes tightly while his face flushes.

"Regretable! It was....it....." He is actually shaking with anger. For a moment I am forcibly reminded of Harry. How alike the two of them are in some ways. Both so stubborn.

And yet how unlike. One a shining prince. The other a ruined mockery of what might have been greatness.

//Careful Professor. Don't get sentimental. Your Harry has a long way to go yet. He may well end up like Severus, or like me.//

Yes, all three of them have much in common. Harry does share traits with both Tom and Snape.

HE WILL NEVER BECOME LIKE THEM! NEVER!!

That was not only my own thought speaking. In it was the definite roar of the awakened thing within me. A thing ready to spit in the very face of the universe at the suggestion that Harry could ever be like .... like Severus for whom I now feel such a feeling of intense pity and irritation that I don't know how I shall keep from bursting from being tugged in different directions.

"I apologize, Severus." I say softly.

"What?" He stares at me. "You apologize for Potter?"

"No. I apologize for me. I should have taken responsibility for the Occlumency lessons. Asking you to do so was unwise and, I now understand, unfair."

His shoulders slump. Suddenly he looks very weary indeed.

"I accept your apology, Headmaster."

We sit in silence for a long moment.

"Now if you will excuse me?" He makes to rise again.

"No Severus." I motion him down again, my expression I fear as sad as my heart.

He sinks back into the chair, looking puzzled.

"You never answered my request."

"Pardon me?" He is both puzzled and angry now. The sneer widens, just slightly, into a small snarl. "I thought we had just covered that."

"No Severus. We covered my apology for placing you in an unwise and unfair position. But you have not given me an accounting for your behavior."

"My behavior?" The volume of his voice rises sharply and he leans forward, placing his hands on my desk, "My behavior toward HARRY POTTER!"

That sets Fawkes off again. I quickly raise my arm, which activates his perching instinct and gets him to settle onto my sleeve instead of flying at Severus in fury. He is hissing now like a defective muggle boiler about to explode. I push back from the desk and place him on my knee, seeing that I will probably have to keep a hand on him for the rest of the conversation if I'm going to spare Severus a visit to Poppy.

"Yes, Severus," I say, "I believe that is what I am requesting."

"How can you?" The hurt in Severus's voice is patent now. "How can you defend him?"

And so we are back to exactly the same place again.

I know longer feel weary with the conversation. I am only feeling increasingly annoyed with this circular rhetoric of Snape's, so like a dog chasing its own tail.

That brings up memories of Sirius, and I hasten on.

"What Harry did was wrong," I readily admit. "But we are speaking of his Occlumency training."

And now it's time for you to explode again.

Severus doesn't disappoint me.

"Of course!" he hisses, his hands writhing on the arms of his chair, "Golden Potter always comes first! The whole school is so busy genuflecting to him they can't see that he isn't anything but an arrogant brat with no respect, no talent, and no willingness to work! Well, he carries a valuable scar, I'll give you that. But that's a case of a diamond harness on a worthless colt, and if I'm the only one that can see it the truth remains the truth!"

"Why are you so certain that you are the only one in this entire castle who can see the truth, Severus?" My voice has grown cold again, and has much more anger in it that I intended. Once again I wonder if I should send Snape away before things get completely out of control. "And I will thank you, once and for all, to save your colorful metaphors and your overstatements."

I actually think Snape is going to come out of the chair. He rocks back and forth, clutching his hands around his knees.

"Overstatements?" He leans forward and puts his hands on the far edge of my desk. "So Potter has no faults, does he?"

"I did not say that, Severus," I am surprised to hear the volume of my own voice rising. I did not intend it. The monster is coming forth again. "I have already said that what Harry did with regard to your penseive was wrong. However, I must admit it strange that few of his other professors seem to find him arrogant or without talent."

"If you are speaking of Lupin ..."

"I was speaking, Severus," I cut him off again, my voice once again rising without my consciously willing it, "of such persons as Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout."

"McGonagall criticize one of her precious Gryffindors?" Snape does rise now. He stands there, breathing heavily like he has just run a long distance race.

I am truly sorry, Severus. But you bring so much on yourself.

"And the others?" I manage to keep my voice quiet this time.

"How could anyone be less than enthralled by The Boy Who Lived?" he asks also in a soft tone. "Especially when it is so clear where the feelings of the school leadership lie?"

A heavy pain is building up in the base of my skull. I pop three lemon drops into my mouth and close my eyes for a moment, trying to resist the urge to order Snape back to his dungeon.

//Wouldn't the students love that? A professor getting a detention!//

"Well," I try to pause before each word both to make sure I am proceeding wisely and to emphasize my enunciation - a habit of my youth which only returns when I am extremely aggravated, "defeating Lord Voldemort's shade, killing a basilisk, repelling dementors, and winning the Tri-Wizard Tournament as an underaged entry do tend to lead to admiration, Professor Snape."

Snape doesn't even pause, but flies immediately back onto the attack. "So you...."

"Sit down, Severus." I raise my hand to forestall his comments and gesture toward the empty chair.

Snape complies, his sneer this time communicating that he is only humoring a foolish request.

"Now," I continue, noticing that my heart has begun to pound rather noticeably along with the throbbing in my head, "you have yet to give me an account of your behavior."

"You yourself have just said...." the twinkles of rage in Severus' eyes are almost starlike now.

"Don't get started Severus." I raise my hand yet again. I'm beginning to feel like a muggle traffic policeman. "Just respond to my request."

"You know the facts already," he growls. "When he refused to apologize, I ejected him from my office."

"Refused," I ask, "or did not?"

"I beg your pardon, Professor Dumbledore?"

"Did Harry in fact refuse to apologize to you, or is it simply that he did not apologize to you?"

Snape folds his hands and stares at me with an inscrutable look. "Is there a difference?"

"A very great one, in fact." I rise, still holding Fawkes, and stroll to the windows to look out. It is a very rude gesture, but I need to relieve my eyes of the sight of Snape before the clogged emotions in my throat completely cut off my ability to breathe.

"He did not apologize." The statement is short, factual, and laden with bitterness.

"I understood as much. And as I have repeatedly said, he was in the wrong. But I think you then said that he was never to return to your office?"